


In Another Stream

by Duganator01



Series: Out Of Time [1]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Beyond canon-typical violence, Death, Gen, Jaune Arc Is A Good Bro, So much death, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, Volume 7 (RWBY), i warned you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-02-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:54:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22679056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duganator01/pseuds/Duganator01
Summary: Something was wrong. With the time stream, with all of this. Things were happening in the wrong order, and other things were happening that just...shouldn't have at all. A storm was coming, but would they be ready when it did?
Relationships: Jaune Arc & Oscar Pine, Jaune Arc & Oscar Pine & Lie Ren & Nora Valkyrie, Jaune Arc & Pyrrha Nikos & Lie Ren & Nora Valkyrie, Lie Ren/Nora Valkyrie
Series: Out Of Time [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1764574
Comments: 11
Kudos: 64





	1. The Calm Before

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You can feel electricity in the air before a storm. You can tell that it’s coming, but you can never tell how soon the clouds and lightning will crash over your head.

They were fighting that woman, Neopolitan, Nora had called her. As they’d fought, the fight had slowly shifted away from the dorms further into the Academy. Neo kept vanishing, only to appear further down the hallway moments later.

She was taunting them, Oscar was sure of it. It was like she wasn’t even trying to fight them, just bait them into some kind of trap. He didn’t like this, not one bit, and he could tell that Jaune and his team didn’t either.

But they weren’t stopping either. They knew the woman from somewhere, but they certainly weren’t sharing the information with him.

To make things worse, she kept doing that _thing_. Her Semblance was illusions, Jaune had shouted over to him while he blocked a hit from the umbrella the woman used as her weapon. She could disguise herself as anyone. Well wasn’t that just peachy.

She was certainly taking full advantage of that ability. Ruby, himself, Nora...the list went on and on. Oscar’s friends, people he recognized, and others he only knew by face.

She’d turned into Nora, which actual Nora had taken as a personal offense. 

It was lucky that Nora had that fight handled, but it looked like the thought of fighting Nora was causing Ren physical pain. It was especially lucky because Oscar couldn’t tell the two Noras apart for the life of him. Finally Nora had gotten in one good hit with her hammer, and Neo vanished in a cloud of pink-white crystal.

After a few moments of scrambling, and calming Nora down, Neo reappeared at the end of the hallway. In her hands she held a glowing red and gold sword, and her now amber eyes flickered with flames. A new disguise, but it was definitely her. That smile was unmistakable, even from this distance.

That woman from Haven. The Maiden, the one Jaune attacked. The one who’d stabbed Weiss, and then vanished below.

Neo turning into her certainly got a reaction, and Ren had to cover for Jaune when seeing her froze him up long enough for Neo to get a hit in. What she meant to the knight, Oscar had no clue, but it were those kinds of taunts that had them chasing her deeper into the academy. Harsh jabs at wounds Oscar didn’t know about, spurring them to follow the woman into the bowels of Atlas.

Deeper in, and further from help. Not that they weren’t trying to get help, but Jaune was having a terrible time with his scroll. He kept shaking and glaring at the thing as if that might make it work better. Time after time he called Ruby, trying not to think about why she might not be picking up.

This couldn’t be happening again. It just _couldn’t,_ not again.

“I can’t get hold of Ruby,” Jaune said, barely hidden distress etched into his voice as they ran. Red lights were pulsing overhead, and alarms were blaring in panic the further in they went.

“Maybe the comms are still blocked?” Oscar panted, struggling to keep up with them, but stubbornly refusing to be left behind. Jaune hoped beyond hope that the younger boy was correct, because the alternative was too much to think about right now. There was a part of Jaune that was screaming at him to get Oscar to stay behind, to get him to get Ruby and the others, and to bring them here.

_‘Go! Get to Vale, and call for help!’_

But there was another larger part of him that knew far too well what that felt like, and he wouldn’t wish that on his worst enemy, let alone on Oscar Pine. So he came along.

“Why’s she here, anyway?” Nora asked, glancing first at Ren then at Oscar. “The Relic?”

“Must be,” Oscar responded, eyes flicking down to where it hung on his belt. All this trouble, for something so small. “But how’d she know about them-” Oscar cut off as a man in a white lab coat running the other way bumped into him, and the elevator door they’d passed dinged open. 

He glanced through the closing doors just in time to see the man’s face morph with a shimmer into his own face smiling sweetly back. Oscar skidded to a halt. “Guys! Guys wait, she’s in the elevator!” He called, hammering on the [OPEN] button.

“Oh come on, that’s not fair!” Nora complained, jogging back over to him and kicking the closed metal doors dejectedly. “How’re we supposed to get her now?”

“We may not have to,” Ren reasoned, while Oscar stepped aside so Jaune could get at the controls. “Neo came for the Relic, and as we still have it, she will have to come back up before long.” 

Jaune pried the panel under the buttons off, and Oscar wondered where the hell he’d learned to hotwire an elevator. “Yeah that’s true,” Oscar sighed, resting one hand on the familiar weight of the lamp at his waist.

His hand closed on open air.

He looked down, alarmed to see the lamp shimmer away into fractals of pink-white crystal. “The scientist!” he exclaimed in shock, staring at the elevator she’d vanished through, “He took it!”

“What scientist?” Jaune asked, attempting to perform complicated electrical work with a sword.

“Neo! Disguised as a scientist! He- She- Bumped into me, and took the lamp!” Oscar spluttered in disbelief.

“She took it!” Nora fumed. “Of freaking course she took it, that little sneak!”

“Well now we’ve really gotta get these doors open,” Jaune muttered, his hands full of electrical wires. “Once I get the doors open, you two jump through, Oscar you’re with me. I don’t know how long they’ll be open for, so we’ll have to be quick.” 

“I think I’ve got it!” He connected one final pair of wires and glanced up at the doors just in time to see a second pair of security doors close over the first.

His face fell, and then they all heard it. Fighting, echoing up the elevator shaft. Swords clanged off each other, explosions rattled the floor under their feet, and the familiar sound of Penny’s laser fire pierced through it all.

“Penny,” Oscar breathed, staring at the door in horror. “We have to get down there and help her!”

“Yes, but against who?” Ren pondered as Jaune gave up on the panel to join them. “Who is she fighting? And why?”

“Cinder,” Jaune answered grimly, ushering them away from the doors. “With the way tonight is going, who else is it gonna be? There’s no way Ironwood doesn’t have the Winter Maiden locked up somewhere in here as well, what else would _she_ be doing here?”

“Yeah,” Oscar said hesitantly, following them a short distance away, “I guess...but what are we doing?”

Jaune shrugged, and activated the hard light edges of his shield. “First plan didn’t work, figured it was time for the old stand-by.” He nodded at the only teammate not with them, and gestured to the doors. “Nora, just hit it with your hammer.”

“Got it,” she replied, sounding delighted.

“Wait, _what-?!”_

Any further words he might’ve been saying were drowned out by the cacophonous thunderous boom when Nora’s hammer impacted the elevator doors.

The door _caved_ , crumpling like paper under the tremendous force. A woosh of displaced air chased the sound down the hallways, ruffling their hair as they stood well back from the destruction. Before the dust had even settled, Jaune was jogging forward and slotting his sword between the doors.

“Okay guys,” he called, prying the doors apart as the rest of his team joined him. “Once I get the doors open, Ren you go first, then you Nora, then Oscar, and I’ll be last.” he groaned, shifting the doors open and getting his body in between them to provide more leverage. “Sound like a plan?”

“Sounds good to me!” Nora said brightly, slinging her hammer in its collapsed form back over her shoulder. Oscar hummed his agreement, his hand resting on his hip where the Relic should have been, and Ren just nodded.

As soon as Jaune got the doors open enough for Ren to slip past, his teammate was moving. He leapt from the ledge onto the cables and slid down them, his braid whipping in the air behind him. Nora followed with a whoop, and Oscar moved to the edge of the pit in her place.

Jaune wedged his shoulders between the doors so he could free one of his hands. He put it on Oscar’s shoulder, and felt as that light-water flowed from his hand into the boy. Oscar’s sparse injuries knitted themselves closed, and the boy glanced up at him in surprise. 

“Can’t have one of my teammates going into battle unprotected,” Jaune commented, straining against the doors.

“But, what about you?” Oscar asked, brows pinched in concern.

“Don’t worry about me, it’ll just recharge I’ll be fine,” he groaned. “Now get down there, I’ll be right behind.” Jaune said, nodding at the hole. Oscar hesitated one more second, and then followed Ren and Nora down into the darkness.

“Right,” Jaune said, shifting as close as he could to the edge without getting crushed by the door. He collapsed his shield and sheathed his sword, leaving only his armor to prevent the doors from closing on him. The metal of his armor scraped against the doors and sent sparks spiraling down after his teammates as he moved. “Here goes nothing.”

And then with the harsh noise of metal grinding on metal, and a shower of sparks, he leapt down into the darkness. By the sound of it, Ren and Nora had already reached the bottom of the shaft and were cutting a hole into the roof of the elevator Neo had taken. 

Oscar was much further behind them, slowed by Jaune’s delay and by his own caution. He could see the boy slowly sliding down, lit only by the glow of the emergency light that pulsed in red lines down the edges of the pit.

Going down an elevator shaft in a ruined Huntsman Academy, to face what he had to assume was a fully empowered Fall Maiden. With nearly no back up, far too much on the line, and not enough information. It was a concerningly familiar feeling.

There was shouting below him. Clangs of metal on metal, explosions that he recognized from half-repressed memories of that last disastrous elevator ride back in Beacon, and cries of pain that he recognized from far too crisp memories of the last fight in the Vytal Festival.

Ren and Nora had broken through the elevator then. And he could hear them fighting already, the familiar sound of Ren’s guns and Nora’s grenades echoed up towards him. A clang of Oscar landing awkwardly on the roof of the elevator car barely filtered up to him over the noise of the battle.

They were deep underground now. Far down into the bowels of Atlas itself. There would be no chance of getting a message to Ruby from down here, even if the others got service back online. Maybe a text in, or a text out, but calls were out of the question.

Jaune’s boots hit the roof of the elevator, jolting him back to the present. The light of flames filtered through the hole Ren had cut in the roof, but the green glow of Penny’s lasers had all but died out. Oh gods please let her be okay. He didn’t think Ruby could take losing her friend for a second time.


	2. Hurricane

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Once you’re in the storm, it can be impossible to find your way out of it. It can feel like there’s no end in sight. Especially when the end you get to is so much worse than the beginning.

He dropped through the hole in the roof into a veritable warzone.

Ren and Nora were fighting Neo, who was dancing around them and dodging all but a few strikes. The woman kept transforming into Nora, which kept making Ren hesitate and stumble. Jaune couldn’t imagine what kept going through his teammate’s head each time he got too close to hitting his… 

Well Jaune didn’t know what. What Nora was to Ren was a mystery to everyone involved.

Oscar was doing his best to help an injured...Winter Schnee? The hell was she doing down here? The woman was bleeding, as sure an indicator as any that her Aura was gone.

Jaune rushed to her, sliding to his knees next to her and bringing up his Semblance. This scene, a Schnee woman bleeding out on the ground, was once again far too familiar for his liking. And from a wound that Cinder Fall had undoubtedly dealt her. 

He recognized those burn marks. Knew them from the identical ones that had marked Winter’s sister’s skin but a few months ago. His Aura was flowing out of his hands and into her wounds before he even came to a halt beside the woman. Glowing light like water condensed over his hands and sank into Winter’s injuries, but it was too late.

She was gone.

Oscar was saying something off to his side, the boy’s hazel eyes filling with tears as he yelped that Winter’s pulse was missing. Jaune could barely hear him. His blood was pounding in his ears, his vision was going shaky, and the light petered out from his hands.

This couldn’t be happening. Not again. _Please_ not again.

Winter’s hair was down, his mind provided off-handedly. The woman had never looked more human than in this moment when she was dead. He couldn’t think, couldn’t _breath_ , couldn’t hear whatever Oscar was screaming at him.

He could hear _her_. 

That laugh, condescending and unattached and smug all rolled into one, taunting the only person missing from this fight. Because Penny was nowhere to be seen, despite the fact that her swords lay discarded all along the hallway.

Jaune got up and stumbled away from Winter’s body. He wasn’t looking at her. He was _not_ looking at her. Oscar tried to follow Jaune to the only open door, but Jaune was paying him no mind. 

Jaune only had eyes for the woman in the room, who was wielding a glowing obsidian sword. The sword glowed with the same fire that blazed from one of her amber eyes. Penny’s other weapons lay shattered on the ground around the two women, or embedded into the walls, leaving Penny with only one. 

She actually had it in her hands for once, and was struggling to hold back the Maiden who was trying her hardest to cut the girl down. Trying to get to that woman, trapped in a disturbingly familiar pod.

He jolted. It was too much. There were too many similarities. The elevator, Ruby missing and unable to be contacted, his teammates fighting and outmatched, not being able to save someone _again_ , and Penny trapped in a fight she couldn’t win. 

Before he could stop himself, his mind was transported back. Taken back to his partner, trapped in a nearly identical pod. Screaming in unimaginable pain as he stood to defend her from an enemy that he couldn’t hope to defeat. That woman, the last Maiden, shot through the chest.

He’d never seen anyone die before. He didn’t know why that woman’s death stuck in his mind so clearly. He didn’t even know her name.

Oscar didn’t know what to do. Jaune was frozen, eyes wide and staring at something that he couldn’t see. Something about seeing the pods, and that woman fighting Penny had done something. What, Oscar couldn’t be sure, but Jaune clearly wasn’t here anymore.

“Jaune come on, please!” Oscar was nearly begging the taller teen. He tugged at Jaune’s gauntleted arm, but he would’ve been more effective at trying to move a mountain. Jaune had at least a hundred pounds on him, and at least a foot of height. He wasn’t moving.

Ren and Nora were in trouble, though, and Jaune wasn’t in any position to help. So it was up to him. Oscar reluctantly dropped Jaune’s hand and turned to run over to Ren and Nora. 

He turned just in time to see Ren finally get a strike on a Nora-disguised Neo. Guess he’d gotten past whatever hang ups he’d been having. Ren slashed with his blades at Not-Nora’s torso, and she gave a cry of pain as her Aura shattered.

Then Neo fell to the ground, and didn’t get back up. 

The Nora behind Ren shimmered in pink and white fractals. Transforming back into Neo. The Nora on the ground didn’t move.

Oscar froze. This couldn’t be happening. 

The world seemed to freeze right along with him. Ren just stood there, a horrified shocked expression coloring his face. Neo was smirking, one hand on the Relic on her hip. 

Oscar turned to Jaune, hoping that he was back with them. His eyes filled with tears when he saw that the older teen was just as out of action as he had been. 

But past Jaune, it was like the room was frozen. Penny was frozen mid block, intense concentration darkening her eyes. Cinder was above her, suspended in midair. The flames coming from her eye didn’t flicker. Jaune beside him didn’t even seem to be breathing.

The world really _was_ frozen. Oscar was the only one who could move. It was like when Jinn was there, but she was nowhere in sight now.

Whole lot of good that did him now. If only this could’ve happened _before_ Weiss’ sister had died, or before Nora had been mortally wounded. He couldn’t help thinking this as his eyes fell once again to Nora’s. If he’d had another chance, Oscar was sure he could’ve fixed everything.

Nora’s blood was barely covering the ground beneath her. It was frozen just like everything else. He could _fix_ this, if he just had another chance. Oscar took a step backwards, away from the body of the woman who had all but officially adopted him as her sibling.

He took a step back, and the world copied him. There was a flash of vibrant green light. Slowly, then more quickly, it reversed. He felt a sensation akin to flying backwards very quickly.

Oscar’s eyes widened in amazement as he watched the blood on the floor crawl backwards into Nora’s body. Neo transformed back into Nora. Cinder’s jump reversed and she floated back to the ground. 

Most critically, Ren’s strike negated, and Nora’s body became uninjured and whole again. 

Somehow, impossibly he’d gone back in time.

He turned just in time to see Neo transform into Nora, just as she had been the entire fight. But this time Oscar knew what was actually going on. Ren turned to strike her, and Oscar was suddenly upset that Ren had gotten past his hang ups, because Ren slashed with his blades at Nora’s torso. At _actual_ Nora’s torso.

Reacting a moment too late, still in shock over what had just happened, Oscar reached out and screamed, “Ren, _no!!”_ But it was far too late. Too late _again_.

Nora gave a cry of pain as her Aura shattered, a cry of pain that Neo wouldn’t have been able to give. Then she fell to the ground, and didn’t get back up. Neo transformed back, and this time Ren dropped to the ground by Nora’s side. 

A scream from behind him jolted Jaune out of wherever he had been. But he couldn’t move properly, it was like he was underwater, or trapped in molasses. He was trying to move, but his limbs wouldn't respond.

He saw Nora fall, and then Ren fell to her side. Blood was soaking the floor and soaking into Ren’s knees. He gathered Nora into his shaking arms and pressed a kiss to her lips, which Nora returned for a moment. She brought one hand up to cup Ren’s face, and her eyes squeezed shut.

Her hand dropped. Her face went lax. Jaune and Ren both knew that her eyes would never open again.

By his side, Oscar seemed just as dazed, and he was muttering something about how he should've been able to stop it. But Jaune only had eyes for his teammate laying bleeding on the floor. Neo raised her umbrella over Ren’s shaking form

Jaune charged forward, thanking any god that might be listening that he could finally move. He raised his shield, fully intending to put his body in between Neo and his defenseless teammate’s, but Ren got there first.

With a roar of rage and sorrow unlike any he’d ever heard from his usually taciturn teammate, Ren whipped his blades around to meet Neo’s. Or maybe to attack her. Jaune would never find out, because in turning, Neo’s blade found its home between Ren’s ribs.

Just as Ren’s blades did in hers.

The momentary distraction from Oscar’s scream was enough to let Cinder finally over power Penny. Her cry of pain had Oscar spinning around just in time to see one of her own superheated swords stab the girl through the chest. The glow in Penny’s eyes flickered and died, and she went still. Like a puppet whose strings had been cut. 

Penny’s arms fell limply to her sides, and her body went as limp as a ragdoll. The only thing keeping her upright was the sword through her chest. Penny was gone.

Neither Oscar nor Jaune could tell you what happened after that.

By the time they came back to themselves, the Winter Maiden was gone, the Relic was gone, Cinder was gone, and everyone else was dead. 

Ren lay curled around Nora, holding her hand even in death. Neo was sprawled out, mismatched hair settled around her in a cloud of colours, a smile still on her now bloodstained face. Winter lay where they’d left her, one hand still laying limply against her wounds in a vain attempt to apply pressure. Penny was skewered in the Aura transfer room, like a bug under glass.

Jaune and Oscar were in shock. Jaune was knelt next to his teammates, his sash soaking in their blood. He ran a shaking hand over Ren’s eyes, brushing them closed. He felt like screaming, he felt like running. He wanted to break something. He had to _do_ something.

“I should’ve done something,” Oscar said. Jaune raised a watery eyed gaze to meet the boy’s from across the room. Oscar was gazing around at everything, seeming detached from reality somehow. It was too much. How had everything gone _so_ incredibly wrong?

“There’s nothing you could’ve done,” Jaune croaked, voice hoarse from cries he couldn’t remember screaming. 

“But there was!” Oscar cried, throwing his hands up in the air. “I- I _did_ something before, and I should’ve been able to stop this again and-”

“Wait,” Jaune said slowly, confusion bubbling up over his overwhelming despair. “What do you mean, again?”

“I…” Oscar hesitated, glancing at Jaune. “You wouldn’t believe me.”

“Try me.”

“I think-” Oscar swallowed, anxiety and panic threatening to silence him, “I think I went back in time?”

Jaune had to admit. Whatever he’d expected Oscar to say, that wasn’t it. “You went back in time.”

“I said you wouldn’t believe me,” Oscar said, trying to rub Winter’s blood from his gloved hands. “I’m probably going crazy,” he muttered, voice shaking with barely repressed emotions.

“I- Wait- Just...just explain to me what happened,” Jaune said, a flutter of a plan flickering in the back of his mind. And a plan meant hope. He wanted to squash it out, but maybe…

“I saw Ren stab Nora,” Oscar explained, his voice shaking more than ever. His gaze was focused on Nora’s body. “And then the world froze? And I just remember thinking how I should’ve been able to stop it from happening. And then the world reversed.”

“Reversed...what do you mean it reversed?” Jaune asked, standing from where he’d been kneeling by Ren’s side. 

“Like...everything played backwards. Like when you reverse a video.” Oscar shrugged, not meeting Jaune’s gaze. “I wasn’t able to stop it the second time either. And this time, my shout distracted Penny and got her killed, too.”

“Wait. Wait wait wait, so you _did!_ ” Jaune said very quickly, crossing to Oscar. “You went back in time!” He exclaimed, waving his arms around in excitement. The plan was beginning to solidify in his mind. This could work, this _might_ be able to work. But only if… “Wait, how far back did you go?” he asked.

“Just a few seconds,” Oscar brushed him off, shaking his head. “Not enough to actually help,” he shuddered, “Just enough to see it coming and not be able to stop it. Some Semblance, huh?” he mumbled.


	3. In The Eye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was over. There was nothing, and no one left. That’s how it felt, in the eye of a storm. A brief calm. A time to regroup, before you were plunged back into the worst of it all over again.

Jaune’s scroll buzzed. Both of them jumped. “Hold that thought,” Jaune said, fumbling the device out of his pocket. The blood on his gloved made the slender scroll hard to open, but he eventually managed it.

“It’s a text from Ruby!” Jaune said, to which Oscar perked up considerably. No call this deep into the island, but a text was good enough for him. It proved that she hadn’t been captured, and, more importantly, it proved that she was still alive.

He seriously thought that one more loss in quick succession would’ve sent him rocketing over the edge that he knew he had nearly fallen over. Only the knowledge of Oscar’s newly-discovered Semblance, and the plan growing in his mind had kept from plummeting over that edge.

It was incredible what a little foolish hope could do.

“She’s alive,” Oscar breathed, looking as relieved as Jaune felt. “What did she say?”

“Oh right! Um…” Jaune scanned over the short message, eyes catching more than once on the empty Aura meters of his teammates at the top of the screen. “Um, she says that her uncle has been arrested, and Tyrian has escaped.” He paused, eyes widening in shock. “Clover is dead.”

“Dead?” Oscar almost whispered. “How? Is _Ruby_ alright?”

“She didn’t say,” Jaune murmured, mind running through all the possibilities. His scroll buzzed again, and Jaune’s face blanched. “S-Salem is here,” he stuttered, voice shaking with disbelief. “She’ll be here by morning.”

“Gods...what’re we gonna do?” Oscar asked nobody in particular. “How do we even begin to fix this?” Jaune couldn’t answer him, he had no answers to give. His whole team was dead, along with Penny, Winter, and the head of the Ace-Ops. Ironwood was AWOL, Qrow was arrested, Tyrian was loose, and Salem was almost here.

All he had was the beginnings of a plan that might be their only hope.

“Oscar, how did you activate your Semblance?” Jaune asked suddenly, crouching and taking Oscar’s shoulder’s in his hands.

“I- what? Why?” The boy spluttered, thrown by the out-of-the-blue question.

“Just answer. Please.” Jaune needed to know this answer, his whole plan hinged on it.

“I guess, I just focused on what I wanted to change,” Oscar recalled slowly, concentrating on remembering. “And then my Semblance just...gave me the time I needed to try.”

The knight sagged in relief. “It’ll work,” he breathed, mind already hopscotching along the path of the plan.

“What will work?”

“I’ve got a plan. Now, it’s risky,” he cautioned, clambering to his feet and running his hands through his hair, leaving sticky red streaks of blood behind in the tousled curls. “And I’m not even sure it’ll work, but I think it’s the only way we stand a chance.” 

He was pacing and gesturing wildly, emphasizing every word with a movement. “Because you- you could fix everything! The election, the attack, Neo, Cinder, the deaths...” Jaune trailed off and stopped pacing, coming to a halt just before his teammates’ bodies. His _family’s_ bodies.

“Oscar, you could fix everything,” Jaune said, turning to the dumbfounded and skeptical looking boy. He knew he probably looked manic, what with the blood on his hands and the light in his eyes, but that did that matter at this point. “But...But I don’t know if it’ll work,” he finished, deflating slightly and wringing his hands together.

“If _what_ will work? Jaune, you’re not making any sense!” Oscar exclaimed, looking more than a little alarmed. “I don’t know how it works! Heck, I don’t even know if I _can_ travel back that far!”

“Sure you can, I’ll boost you,” Jaune reassured him, striding back over. “Just focus on changing the election results. _Just_ the results, and you should be taken back to election night. Before…” Jaune glanced at Penny’s body, suspended on her own sword. “Before everything started going wrong.”

“Shouldn't we ask the others?” Oscar protested, trying not to think about how much their numbers have dropped in just one night.

“I…” Jaune hesitated. Salem could be there any minute. And every second that ticked by was more distance Oscar had to travel. “There’s no time,” Jaune answered, regretfully. Ironic, that’s what it was. Not having enough time to communicate their plan to their friends. “So...you got the plan?”

“Election night?” Oscar asked, and got a nod in reply. “But...that’s over a week ago! Boosting me that much, losing that much Aura could kill you!”

Jaune shook his head and fixed Oscar with a focused gaze. “If I die giving you more time, then it’s worth it,” he said fiercely. “Besides,” he glanced at Ren and Nora’s still bodies, “What else could I lose?” he murmured to himself, rubbing his sash between his fingers.

Oscar nodded, gaze hardening. “Okay. I’ll try.” Jaune’s eyes widened with shock and what looked like pride, and then he drew the boy into a bone crushing hug. Oscar stiffened, startled by the sudden embrace. But then he returned it, and the two boys simply sat there. Shaking with sobs and hugging in the blood stained hallway.

“I’m gonna fix this,” Oscar promised through his tears.

“You better, or I’ll come back from the grave and haunt you,” Jaune threatened, squeezing Oscar tighter, as if determined to not let him leave.

“I just wish I didn’t have to do this alone,” Oscar admitted, hating how much he sounded like a little kid at that moment.

“Don’t worry, I’m gonna be with you every step of the way,” Jaune reassured him, leaning out of the hug and ruffling the boy’s hair. “What’re big brothers for, anyway?”

Oscar grinned for a moment, a light returning to his eyes that had been missing ever since that sword had impaled Penny. He swallowed nervously, but his eyes were focused. “Okay. Let’s do it.”

The knight nodded and put one hand on each of Oscar’s shoulders. Oscar closed his eyes, and cleared his mind of anything except changing the election. A soft green glow enveloped the boy, and for a moment he seemed to flicker. It was now or never.

Jaune squeezed his eyes shut and focused all of his energy on pushing every last bit of that liquid light into Oscar Pine. More and more, faster and faster, a flood of energy passed from Jaune’s body into Oscar. The glow of their Auras intertwined, white battling green.

They were moving backwards, but they weren’t moving. Jaune was searching every last corner of his being for more Aura to give to Oscar. Oscar was being overwhelmed by more energy than he’d ever felt before. How the heck did Jaune hold this much Aura without burning up? 

It was a blazing inferno, like the sun. Overwhelming white light flooded his vision, lighting the path back to the moment of the election. In the dorms, asking Weiss to go to the movies. It seemed so simple now. Pure white Aura blinded and guided him along the winding path to the past.

Jaune was running out, running dry. He hadn’t felt this cold and empty of Aura in nearly three years. But still he pressed on, pushing and giving every last bit of energy he had to the boy who was their only hope. He was the one who mattered, not Jaune. 

There wasn’t much left to give though. He could nearly feel his life and soul dripping away. His very being, sacrificed so that his friends might be able to live. Anything for them.

Anything at all.

The rushing backwards sensation stopped. 

In a dead timeline, Jaune Arc’s hands fell away from empty space. Oscar was gone. Jaune collapsed forwards, and his arms didn’t catch him. He had no strength to be able to. He was dead before he hit the ground. Finally team JNPR was reunited at long last.. 

It was all he’d hoped for since Ren and Nora had died. There was nothing left for him here. Just the ability to help them try again.

In the past, Oscar Pine blinked his eyes once, twice. He swayed and nearly fell over. Jaune stopped asking about the movies and steadied him, worry coloring his features. 

He spotted Nora and Ren about to walk off with Ruby. He’d made it. He did it. 

“Oscar, are you okay?” Jaune asked at nearly the same time Ruby did.

“I’m fine,” he assured them, smiling around at his friends. His still-alive and not bleeding out on the concrete floor of a hallway hundreds of feet beneath them. He fixed Ruby with a serious gaze.

“What is it?” Nora asked, leaning against Ren and glaring slightly when he moved away. Oscar sighed and smiled softly, watching their antics. Happy that they were alive to _have_ antics.

“It’s a long story.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First multi-chapter fic I've ever actually completed. This is a momentous occasion. Might write more in the universe, but we'll see.


End file.
